Re: Scanning 2D barcodes

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From: Rick Dunmire (dunnie_at_STOP)
Date: 07/15/04 

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:35:33 -0400

OK, I think I understand about the ups and downs to the various scanners and
what not. Now back to my original question about the barcode itself, is
there any ocx's or dll's I need to read this information into a textbox? I
have seen some stuff on google but I don't think it's what I need or is this
all done inside the scanner itself?

Rick

"Thomas Lutz" <tom@taltech.com> wrote in message
news:mvqaf05ibfdvtf9pho0itroedlj6skv1me@4ax.com...
> Most 2D bar code scanners have RS232 serial output although you can
> also get them with USB or keyboard wedge output.
> Keyboard wedge output with a 2D scanner makes little sense because
> they transfer data extremely slowly because they must use a
> "inter-character delay". If you are scanning bar codes that contain
> large amounts of data, they can be painfully slow to transfer all the
> data into your application.
>
> Your best bet is to get a RS232 serial output and use the MSComm
> control to read the data directly from the scanner into yoru
> application.
> USB scanners are typically available in one of two "flavors". The
> first flavor of USB bar code scanner works just like a keyboard wedge
> type scanner. When you connect the scanner to the PC, the scanner
> identifies itself to the PC as a "keyboard" device and when you scan a
> bar code, the data gets entered as keyboard input. No driver is
> required for this type of scanner because Windows has built in USB
> keyboard drivers.
> The other flavor of USB scanner comes with a special driver that
> emulates a COM port when you connect the scanner to the PC.
> In other words when you plug the scanner into the USB port, the
> scanner's driver creates a "Virtual COM port" that behaves exactly
> like a physical COM port on your PC. You still need to use serial
> communications code or the MSComm control to access the data from the
> scanner. If you have a free serial port on your PC then it make sense
> to get a RS232 scanner and connect it to the serial port on your PC.
> If your PC does not have a serial port then the next best thing would
> be to get a USB (serial flavor) scanner.
>
> Get Richard Grier's book on serial port programming in VB or take a
> look at the MSComm sample program that comes with Visual Basic to
> learn how to use the MSComm control. It is an extremely easy control
> to use. You just need to make sure that you set the RThreshold
> property of the control to 1 to enable receive events otherwise you
> will end up pulling your hair out trying to figure out why you never
> get any data.
>
> If you only need to interface a small number of scanners to your VB
> program then you may want to look at using a third party tool for
> doing the serial communications. WinWedge from TAL Technologies is a
> program that is designed to run in the background and feed serial data
> directly to other Windows programs using Dynamic Data Exchange.
> WinWedge works great with Visual Basic programs and is trivially easy
> to use. All you need to do is configure WinWedge to work with your
> scanner and then set a couple of properties on your textbox in your VB
> program to receive all input from the scanner. No programming is
> necessary. If you need to get up and running quickly then WinWedge is
> the way to go.
> For more information about WinWedge please visit:
> http://www.taltech.com/products/winwedge.html
>
> To see an example of how to use WinWedge with a VB program visit:
> http://www.taltech.com/support/dde_sw/ddevb1.htm
>
>
>
> On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:24:38 -0400, "Rick Dunmire" <dunnie@STOP
> SPAM.pa.net> wrote:
>
> >Hwello everyone,
> >
> >I am trying to add a barcode scanning feature into my app. What I need,
is
> >to scan a 2D barcode and display it's informatuion in a textbox (for now,
at
> >some point I need to devide it up into fields) so I can copy and paste
it. I
> >have checked with some barcode scanner shops but they don't offer
anything I
> >can use in a 3rd party software. Any ideas where I can get some source
for
> >this? I checked with PSC but they only have for 1D barcodes.
> >
> >Thanks
> >
> >Rick Dunmire
> >
>

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